Introduction:

Perioperative anxiety in children is associated with postoperative outcomes such as, nightmares, sleep-walking, new onset enuresis, night terrors, separation anxiety disorder and tantrums. Perioperative anxiolysis allows to diminish the presentation of these outcomes, however, it’s prevalence its unknown in Colombia.

Aim:

To describe the practice of perioperative anxiolysis in pediatric populations, carried out by Colombian anesthesiologists.

Material and methods:

A descriptive study was carried out, self-completed electronic surveys explored demographic variables, knowledge, attitudes and practices about management and prevention of perioperative anxiety in children. Incomplete records were excluded for analysis. A sensitivity analysis was done to determine the impact of the exclusion of incomplete records. Colombian Anesthesiology Society was in charge of sending the surveys.

Results:

Two-hundred and twenty (220) complete records were obtained, mostly from Bogotá, Valle del Cauca and Antioquia. The prevalence of perioperative anxiolysis was 86.8%, its practice was not related with any subspecialty. Barriers such as «Lack of institutional promotion» (p = 0.000 OR = 1.69), «Unavailability of ideal anxiolytic medicines» (p = 0.000 OR = 3.52) and «Fear of drug-related adverse reactions» (p = 0.013 OR = 5.47) were identified in multivariate analysis.

Conclusion:

Different factors limit the execution of perioperative anxiolysis in children, all of them potentially modifiable with national, institutional and professional policies.